


wishing the world away

by MaliciousVegetarian



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: (in reference to stregobor), Babies, F/F, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Polyamory, Stregobor Dies, That's the MCD, magical baby acquisition
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-18 04:08:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29112084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaliciousVegetarian/pseuds/MaliciousVegetarian
Summary: Fringilla, Yennefer, Triss, and Sabrina have worked hard to get their daughter.  And they're not letting anyone hurt her - not even a powerful member of the council.Or, Renfri is the sorceresses' daughter and Stregobor gets what he deserves.
Relationships: Fringilla Vigo/Sabrina Glevissig/Triss Merigold/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 13
Kudos: 23
Collections: The Witcher Quick Fic #05





	wishing the world away

**Author's Note:**

> Ah this is Bad and the last half is so rushed but at least it's here?
> 
> Warnings for discussions of fertility issues (sort of, they're magical) and child endangerment/referenced child torture.

The baby is born during the eclipse. Yennefer pulls her from the portal just as the sky darkens, the magic sparking in the now-dim room. The others gather near, watching Yennefer work. The worlds feel as if they’re ripping open at her fingertips, and the whole thing is very otherworldly. She barely notices the sun obscuring the moon.

The child is curled in the portal, little legs pulled up to her - it’s a girl! - chest. She opens one eye at the intrusion, seeming more pissed off than a newborn should be able to. Her skin, which isn’t covered in viscera as most babies are, is an umber brown, and her hair is just black wisps. The eye peering at Yennefer is the kind of brown you could fall into and never come back up from. 

“She’s beautiful,” Yennefer murmurs in a low voice, her words laying soft over the quiet room like snow. There’s a small gasp from behind her, she’s not sure who from.

She reaches in, gently cupping the little bottom and the fragile neck, balancing her on her two hands like an offering. Her daughter. Their daughter.

Sabrina is there with a towel, bundling the baby while she’s still in Yennefer’s hands. The baby startles and starts to cry, little fists punching the air.

“It’s alright,” Yennefer reassures her. “It’s just us.” She doesn’t actually know if the tiny baby recognizes them, given the way she was created, and in her deepest heart where the fear swirls dark and thick, she wonders if they’ve harmed the bond with the child, bringing her into the world in such an unnatural way. Yennefer already feels connected to her daughter, but is it returned?

Sabrina stares at the baby for a long moment, Triss and Fringilla bending over to look at her. Yennefer turns away from them for a moment (even that is heartwrenching) and waves her hand, closing the portal that the baby had called home for the last nine months. The child has quieted when she turns back, looking around her in startled wonder. Her eyes seem impossibly huge, and Yennefer is again struck by their depth - how could they belong to such a new creature?

Behind them, the sun slides back out, light lazily filtering in the window, dancing across the floor. The four sorceresses barely notice, all their attention focused on the new star in their arms.

\---

They had wanted her, planned for her, for so long that it had seemed, at least to Fringilla, that it was impossible they would ever get her. It was the last lesson Fringilla had learned at Aretuza, that it was possible to want something too much, to tempt destiny with imagined futures until she lashes out at you. Somehow, despite that, she had come true.

Fringilla wasn’t the little girl who had arrived at Aretuza, or the young woman who’d left it, anymore. In the past years of studying and trying and trying again, she’d grown into herself. She knew it, as well, and on good days she let herself be proud. She and Yennefer had spearheaded the experiment to bring them their baby, a process that had taken twenty years.

It had been Yennefer who first started the seed of them having a family. They had been together for years by then, and the entire time she had carried that secret wish, the last thing that would make them complete, the thing none of the rest of them knew was missing. 

The four of them had been together since Aretuza, a slow coming together as if they’d been pulled by the strings of fate. Yennefer and Triss first, then Fringilla, and then finally Sabrina, who’d first been a friend with benefits and made a seamless transition to one of them. In their final years of study, there had been a franticness to it, as they had grappled with the knowledge that they would be split, sent to different kingdoms. And after they’d met the rulers, there had been the knowledge that one of them would be sent to Nilfgaard.

It had been down to Yennefer and Fringilla, they knew. One of them would be sent to that man, and there would be no escape. The rest of their life would be entwined with the empire.

In a different world, maybe it would have turned them against each other. But instead, Yennefer seethed at the unfairness to the both of them. Triss had suggested it - once they had ascended, they could just leave. Go out somewhere together. Stay there, working magic for the locals, far away from the politics of the Council.

And they had. They had selected the small town in Rinde, and found a house, which they’d modified with magic. And for years, that had been enough.

But when Yennefer had admitted her secret wish, the others had realized their own desires. They had begun to research, to pool their knowledge, finding books left in libraries untouched for ages. And they had failed, cried on each other’s shoulders, tried again. Cried more, adjusted spells, calibrated times, practiced portals, tried again. And then Renfri was there, born under a black sun.

Fringilla went back and forth on the concept of destiny. On the one hand, she saw the strings of it tugging at the universe. On the other, she knew that you could defy it. But something in her gut told her her daughter would be magnificent.

She adjusts the baby’s sling on her chest, looking over the spell she’s preparing for a local family. It’s a simple thing, as most of their business these days are. Yennefer likes to organize orgies on occasion, but for the majority, it’s small spells.

\--

The first time Sabrina hears a whisper of the black sun princesses, she’s at the market, talking to one of their regulars. As sorceresses, they can easily provide most things for themselves, but it’s nice to go out around people from time to time.

The eclipse had shaken the common people, and the sorceresses had spent a good while spreading the word of what it really signified. Triss had pulled out the telescope she had built, and spent a night letting the town children look at the moon and planets through it. But the name of it had stuck - the black sun.

“Have you - Mage - looking for - girls born under the black sun.” Sabrina can’t catch the rest of the words, and it takes all the training she received to be a court mage to keep herself from wheeling around and confronting the person. Instead, she makes her excuses to the woman and creeps closer, weaving a tiny magic to keep herself unseen.

“- says they’re evil, mutants. They’re fated to be evil, they say. And the sorcerer will pay good money for them.”

Sabrina can’t see the person’s companions, but she hears their reply. “Can you trust mages, though? Most of them aren’t like our sorceresses, they only look out for them and theirs. Who knows what his motives are?”

The first speaker shrugs, the outline of their shoulders sharp against the busy market. “I don’t know, and I don’t care. If I get the money, who cares what a mage does? They’re all crazy anyways.”

Give me a name, Sabrina thinks. Just tell me the name. But the people say their goodbyes and walk away, and she’s left standing there with a basket in her hand, the stealth charm forgotten. People pass around her, but the world seems to have turned on it’s side.

She portals home, too upset to take the scenic route she usually enjoys. Triss is in their garden, coaxing a stubborn rose to twine around a trellis. It’s spring, and the whole house seems to be in bloom. The windows, made of prized glass, flash in the bright light. Under the cherry tree, which has already dropped it’s blooms, leaving a carpet of white around it, Fringilla sits with baby Renfri on a blanket, lazily chewing the corner of one of her blocks. Sitting up is her newest skill, and she seems proud of it - an odd emotion to attribute to a baby, but she has the range.

Triss looks up from her flowers right away, especially since Sabrina almost portals into her. “What’s wrong?”

“Someone’s coming for Renfri.”

“What?” Fringilla stands up, bending down quickly to perch the baby on her hip. “What do you mean?”

Seeing the baby, Sabrina feels something closer to calm. She had half been afraid that she’d arrive to her baby being gone. “It’s the eclipse. Someone’s started a rumor that girls born under the black sun are - something, I’m not sure. It’s nonsense, obviously, look at her. She’s just a baby. But anyways, there’s a mage - I’m not sure who, I didn’t hear a name - who’s collecting them.”

“Tissaia?” Fringilla’s face is hard.

Sabrina shakes her head. “They were talking about a sorcerer.”

“Stregobor,” Triss hisses. “I’d bet anything, I always got creepy vibes from him.”

Yennefer must have seen them through the window, because she comes out the door, hurrying over to them. Sabrina explains again, and Yennefer shakes her head. “Triss is right. I don’t have any proof, but she is. It’s got him written all over it.”

“We need a plan,” Fringilla says, taking charge. “We can’t leave her alone. We have to be with her every minute. And we should go into the village more frequently, keep our ears out for gossip. If people are talking about this, they’ll talk again.”

\--

The next few weeks pass for Triss in a haze of fear. Even as much as she trusts her partners, it’s gut wrenching being apart from Renfri. Worse, she’s the one there when it happens.

They never find out how Stregobor knew where to find them, or that Renfri had been born under the black sun at all. All they know is that one night, without any of them realizing, he comes for her.

The problem is, none of them know Stregobor that well. To recognize another mage’s illusions, you need to know their magic. You need to know their signature. So Triss doesn’t realize the crib and baby in front of her aren’t the real thing for too long. Long enough to give him an edge, to let him get away.

When the ruse is discovered, they huddle together in Renfri's room, arms wrapped around each other, furious and defeated at the same time.

"I'll kill him," Yennefer snarls. "If he's laid a hand on her, I'll kill him."

"I'll kill him if he hasn't," Sabrina says.

"We have to go after her," Triss says. "We've already wasted enough time."

Fringilla nods, grabs for their hands, and then they're gone.

Stregobor's tower is tall and menacing, and the four sorceresses stand in the shadow of it, unsure what to do. Triss feels panic rising, the fear that they're too late bitter in her throat.

"We have to go in," Yennefer says, voice uncharacteristically shaky. Triss leans over and takes her hand, squeezing tight. As she walks towards the door, the grass wilts under her feet.

The door opens easily, which is suspicious. Triss feels the hair on the back of her neck stand up, as they walk into a small, dark room. Has Stregobor really not prepared for them? He has to have.

Out of the corner of her eye, Triss sees Fringilla take a deep breath and straighten up. "Sabrina, stay here and watch the door. Triss, Yenny, come upstairs with me. We'll search each floor."

Then Triss hears it - a baby's cry, far away and desperate. She charges up the stairs, only a hair behind Yennefer, Fringilla not far behind.

They pass by the first floor, the wailing getting louder as they go. At the second floor, Fringilla stops and puts her ear to the door. "Here," she says, and with a flick of her hand, the door swings open.

Suddenly and sharply, the sound of crying stops. Triss' heart almost stops with it. The room is full of plants, trees that reach up to the ceiling with spindly boughs. There's a man with a patchy beard who she recognizes as Stregobor.

"Where is she," Yennefer hisses. Stregobor smiles grimly, and gestures to the roots of one tree, where Renfri is sitting, babbling happily. They rush forward, but something stops Triss.

"That is not my baby," she says, whipping around to see Stregobor raising his staff, ready to strike. Before he can move, vines sprout up from the floor, wrapping around him and holding him in place. Triss feels him straining at her magic, and pours everything she has into it. She feels more than sees Fringilla and Yennefer behind her, their chaos gathering, making the air sing with static. Their blasts hit the mage in unison.

The crying resumes as Stregobor turns to ash, the trees flickering and fading away, revealing a cold room. Renfri is strapped to a table in the center, apparently unharmed and wailing her little head off. The three of them hurry over and release her, and Fringilla scopes her into her arms. The baby buries her head in her shoulder, her wails fading to sniffles.

They run down the stairs back to Sabrina, who reaches out and takes Renfri, kissing her face.

"Let's go home," Triss says, looking around at her family.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
